


Sylvester

by phoenixdna



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Animal Abuse, Animal Death, Blood, Gen, Original Character Death(s), Teen!Moriarty, Teenagers, abuse implied, child!moriarty, depictions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 16:39:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5213108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixdna/pseuds/phoenixdna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Moriarty does not like being called Jimmy. Fortunately, anyone can be trained.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sylvester

Blood. It was something about blood.

James shook fragments of his dream out of his mind and sat up in his bed. He looked around the room. Daylight was creeping around the corners of his blackout shade, a grey sort of daylight. He climbed out of bed and opened the shade. Fog crept over the back of his mother’s property, so that the hedges at the edge were very nearly obscured. Raindrops wandered down the windowpane, seeming to resist gravity’s pull. It was only sprinkling, but already Jim felt a lazy mood overtake him. He briefly considered feigning ill, but he didn’t want to disappoint his mother, so he got up and began to dress.

James was fifteen. The sounds of his footsteps echoed in the draughty old house. It was empty. His mother had already gone to work, at the hospital, and his father was gone. Dead. They pegged it as a suicide. He’d left a note and a will, leaving Jim’s mother with his money and the property. And a good number of scars. His mother pretended to be sad, but wasn’t, not really. She was relieved. James could always tell when his mother was pretending. He could tell when pretty much anyone was pretending. Bad liars, the whole world. That’s why he didn’t have very many friends. That’s what he told himself, anyway, and he was the best liar he knew. He almost believed it.

He ate toast for breakfast and left the house at eight on the nose, the whole world wrapping him in grey. He enjoyed the foggy weather, really. He took in the landscape as he walked along the sidewalk, past the next house over. It was an old cottage made of stone, with an overflowing rose garden in the front and forest on the rest of the sides. It was inhabited by an elderly couple, Alan and Sue, and their fluffy black-and-white cat, Sylvester. Alan came into focus through the fog. He was tending to their front garden.

“Hey, Jimmy!” Alan said, “Lovely weather, hey?” He had himself a bit of a laugh and smiled. He stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of Jim. “You stay out of trouble, alright?”

“It’s James,” James replied, “Or Jim. Not Jimmy.”

“Oh, come on,” Alan said, “You’ve been Jimmy ever since you were a kid. Can’t I call you that anymore?”

“I said no,” James said. He pushed past Alan and continued on his way to school.

James hated being called Jimmy. It infantilized him, made him small. It was what all the kids at school who bullied him called him. Worse, it was what his father had called him. And god knows he didn’t want to be reminded of that. So it was Jim, with his friends, who numbered very few. It was James with everyone else.

School was its usual brand of torture. Class moved too slow, and everyone around Jim was utterly ordinary. He only took interest in his biology class. They were dissecting frogs. The scent of formaldehyde hit him as soon as he walked into the class. Jim’s lab partner was particularly squeamish, so he got to dissect the frog. He broke the ribs and extracted the stomach, liver, and heart with precision.

“Nice work, James,” his teacher told him, “You could be a surgeon. Although you should put on gloves. Formaldehyde is carcinogenic in high concentrations.”

“Noted, thanks,” he said, and continued on with his work. When class was over, he washed his hands, washed his instruments, and put the eviscerated frog in the trash. On the way home from school he tried to recall his dream. Blood was all he got.

“Hey, Jimmy!” Sue said, interrupting his reverie when he was almost home.

“James,” he corrected.

“Right, James,” the woman replied, “How was school?”

“Fine,” he said, taking a derisive stance in the middle of the sidewalk. Sylvester came out from among the rose bushes and began to wind his way around Jim’s legs. Jim reached down to pet him.

“Oh, Jimmy, he likes you,” Sue commented.

Rage rose inside Jim. How many times will it take them to get it? It’s like they don’t care. They don’t respect me.

He looked up at Sue, and then it came to him.

Blood. Formaldehyde. James. Jimmy.

Sylvester.

“Sue, do you make Sylvester come inside at night?” he asked.

“Oh, not really,” Sue replied, “We have a cat door round the back. He just comes and goes as he pleases. Why?”

“I’ve just seen him wandering our back lawn in the middle of the night,” Jim replied, “I was curious. Have a nice day.”

“You too, dear,” Sue said.

Blood. Formaldehyde. James. Jimmy. Sylvester.

***

There are many ways to kill a cat, James thought.

It was easy, really. Catching the cat, that is. All he had to do was go to the back door with a tin of tuna late at night, when everybody was asleep. But now that he had the cat, he wasn’t sure how to do it. Bleeding, beating, shooting – he had his father’s old hunting rifle – asphyxiation. There were so many ways to do it that he almost giggled.

James had known for a long time that he was strange. He was disturbed. He didn’t know why. His mother didn’t pay enough attention to notice. She was distant, and drunk most of the time. He loved her, yes, but she was clueless. He didn’t mind, he told himself. It made things easier.

But now – the cat.

In the end he went with asphyxiation. His mother was sleeping off Friday night, so it didn’t cause any trouble. He just put the cat in a Tupperware box, connected that box to the exhaust pipe with a bit of tubing from the garden shed. It took less than five minutes.

After that he brought the cat to the shed at the back of their property. His father had used it for hunting and preparing game. Since then, James had taken it over

His father had taken him hunting enough times to show him what to do. A rabbit may be different than a cat, but the principle was still the same. Cut off the bottom half of each leg, remove the skin, like pulling off a sock. Slit open the belly and take out the organs. His biology teacher was right; he could be a surgeon. He hummed while he worked, a little bit of Bach: Jesus bleibet meine Freude. By the time he was done, the skin, relatively intact, was on a tanning rack to dry. The organs, carefully extracted, were pickling in jars of formaldehyde. He’d paid special attention to the brain, the eyes, and the heart.

Oh, the heart. Such an exquisite thing. And even prettier when he considered what he was going to do it. Now, he just had to wait.

***

It was a week later when his plan came together.

“Hey, Jimmy,” Alan said, when he was walking to school, “Have you seen Sylvester? I haven’t seen him around lately. We were wondering if he’s okay.”

“Haven’t seen him,” Jim said, “Sorry. I’ll keep my eye out.”

But Alan had just called him Jimmy. The game had begun. The question now was, what first? He had so many choices. The liver, the stomach? Not the heart. He was saving that for the grand finale.

So, later that night, when everyone was asleep, he stole out to his shed. He pulled the liver from the jar it was floating in and placed it on Sue and Alan’s front step.

The next morning, Alan didn’t notice it. In fact, he stepped on the damn thing. But Jim was in it for the long haul. Eventually, they’d notice. Anyone can be trained.

***

It was a game. Every time they called him Jimmy, he’d leave an organ for them on their doorstep. It was hard for them to notice, on the doorstep. After the liver was stepped on and the stomach accidentally kicked away, he hung the kidneys from a string in their doorway.

James was on his way to school the next day when he saw Sue step out the door. Yes, he’d measured right – the kidneys hit her in the face.

“What’s..? Oh, how strange. Hey, Jimmy,” she said, “Someone hung some kidneys from my door.”

“Odd,” he said through his teeth. They were so simple they didn’t even understand the game. He stopped and turned to her. “Have you found Sylvester yet?” he asked, trying to coax the connection out of her.

“No,” she said. She looked a little sad. “I suppose he’s just run off.”

Time to change the game. That night, he took the intestines. He unwound them carefully and laid them out on the step. They started on the step, slithered across the yard, hid under the rosebushes. Under the rosebushes, a little tag. He’d written it while wearing gloves. Sylvester.

James didn’t see her find it, which disappointed him. When he was walking back from school, though, he saw Alan sitting on the front step, comforting a crying Sue.

“Are you okay?” James asked, crouching in front of her, “What’s the matter?”

“Ss… someone… someone killed Sylvester.”

“How do you know?” James asked.

“They left his organs around. There’s a stomach… and those kidneys… and these intestines.”

“Excuse me,” someone said from behind James. He turned. It was a police officer.

“I’m so sorry,” James said.

“Thanks, Jimmy,” Alan said. “Oh. James.”

Almost there.

***

Then came the final part of the plan. He’d had ample time – three weeks – to prepare the hide. It was a Saturday. He wanted to see it. So, on Friday night, he left the hide, propped up with some newspapers, on their front step. Beneath it, the heart. And then he watched from the window.

He saw their curtains flutter. He smiled. In fact, he giggled. He ran out the door and reached their front step just as Sue stepped outside.

“Sylvester!” she said, “Oh, Sylvester, I’m so glad you’re home. Come inside, you must be… hungry?”

She noticed something was off. She crouched down. She picked up the hide, saw what it was, saw the heart underneath.

“Oh… oh god.”

“What’s the matter, Sue?” James asked.

“Oh, James, he’s dead. He’s gone.” And, to his surprise, she hugged him.

“James,” she said, “James.” Over and over.

Anyone can be trained.


End file.
